| The start of a new year brings a sense of new beginnings and hope for many of us. Maybe you are like me and are vowing to give up a bad habit. Mine is cutting back on eating too many desserts! But others ̶ including our family members, friends and neighbors ̶ are trying to overcome serious addictions that result in criminal behavior, landing them in our courts. The good news is that Missouri courts do much more than just send people to prison, dissolve families and hold people responsible for monetary judgments. For the last three decades, court staff and other professionals have been doing amazing work helping rehabilitate individuals with substance abuse issues so they do not have to go to prison and leave their family broken. Treatment courts ̶ originally called drug courts ̶ started in Missouri in 1993 in Jackson County. They were available for offenders whose addictions to drugs led them into a revolving door of crime and punishment. The voluntary program was designed to…